"You Hit Me!" -Tension Rose Then In Stepped Grandma


"There's no more room."

The church parking lot was full. This would often happen on special occasions, or for different events. Traffic cones would be placed across the entrance and someone would be assigned to stand there to let people know. This was one of those days. The two individuals at the entrance were college students from the church.

A car pulled in and the driver refused to turn around. Although no spaces were available he insisted on being let into the lot. He spoke angrily and made demands. Then things elevated. With a young man standing in front of his car he pulled forward and bumped him. I didn't witness any of this, but got to hear about it later. Our parking attendant instantly became angry. Not unusual considering someone had just hit him on purpose with their car. Words were exchanged and it became evident the whole situation could go from bad to worse quickly.

In steps grandma.

Seemingly out of nowhere, an elderly woman was in the middle of the scene and began to speak calming words to the young man. He had every "right" to feel angry, but that didn't make responding in anger the right thing to do. Things settled thanks to a peacemaker.

"Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God." Matthew 5:9

Thank God there was a peacemaker on the scene. It is said that when things get heated we all hold two buckets in our hands. One is a bucket of water, and the other a bucket of gasoline. We get to decide which bucket to throw on the fire. Sadly in our day the example that is given to us by our political leaders and media is to throw gas on the fire. Words are used that elevate tension and cause more harm. 

But we're the children of God. Our example is Christ, and our guide is God's word. When situations arise in your life where tempers can flare, whether your own or someone else's, be a peacemaker. 

Peacemakers are blessed.

Following the Son,
James A Williams


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Get The Rebound

Image
If you've ever played or watched basketball you know that rebounding is a huge part of the game. If you're unfamiliar with the sport rebounding is quite simply getting the ball when a shot is missed. You can't score without the ball which makes the play of great importance. It's not unusual for a team with a higher shooting percentage to lose a basketball game because they were out rebounded. On the court what you do when you miss can be even more important than making shots. It's true in life as well. Everyone misses shots, but that doesn't mean you've lost the game. Get the rebound. "For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again." Proverbs 24:16. People won't always give you the chance to rise again. For some your shortcoming is how they'll label you forever. Get the rebound anyway.  It was the historian Froude who wrote, "The worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a singular a...
Read more

What’s In Your Cart?

Image
On this day in 1939, Sylvan Goldman who owned the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain got an idea. He was trying to think of a way for his customers to transport more groceries around his stores. He attached 4 wheels to the legs of a wooden folding chair, and then attached a basket to the seat. The shopping cart was born.  Before this shopping trips to the Humpty Dumpty or the Piggly Wiggly would be limited to what you could carry in your arms. I wonder if Sylvan’s original patent stated that one of the wheels was to either not spin or rapidly shake back and forth? It’s possible that this is some modern improvement on his original design. However it happened the carts keep getting bigger. When I bring my groceries to the check out counter I sometimes use the self check out. I don’t like the self checkout because the computer keeps telling me I put things in the bagging area when I didn’t. When I get a real person they will often ask this profound question. “Did you find ev...
Read more

Mercy

Image
We visited our nephew and his family last weekend. They have three boys, and witnessing their interactions brought back memories of both fun and difficult days of raising our boys. Sometimes when my boys were young I felt like all I did was discipline them. It seemed at times like we couldn't make it through a meal, homework, or even play time, without a fight breaking out, some inappropriate comment, backtalk, or a hundred other random things they could find to do to push their Mother and I over the line. I remember calmly saying things like, "I need for you to understand that I can feel anger welling up within me."  Sometimes this would result in corrected behavior, other times they would look at me as though I were speaking Chinese (I know this isn't actually a language, please don't write me a letter). I realize spanking children is controversial, so I tried not to spank my sons over 3 or 4 times a day (That's called hyperbole). On one occ...
Read more